August 2025 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 -
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You just Thought the Plastic Raft in the Pacific was Bad
Posted in Big Tech Big Lie or Promise?, Families
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Knowledge Falsely So Called
1 Timothy 6:20, in the KJV, reads, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:” The Greek word translated ‘science’ is gnōsis. The basis for our word ‘knowledge’. Frankly, I am surprised that 7 of the 62 English translations retain ‘science’. Puts a whole other spin on appeals to ‘science’ today, doesn’t it? Continue reading
Posted in Big Tech Big Lie or Promise?, Missouri Megatrends
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Synods Make for Strange Bedfellows
Having been blessedly free of the Lutheran Church Misery Synod overall and its Texas District for 6 years now, I have no standing with either. Truth be told, even for the 36 years I belonged to the former and the 28 years I belonged to the latter, I did not. But something drew me in my superannuation (Okay, I had to look this synonym up.) or perhaps in my dotage to the Texas District 2025 convention. It might have been that the first district convention I ever attended was the 1985 Texas one where my pregnant wife, myself, a pastor friend, and his pregnant wife shared a room at the Hotel Galvez (This was Airbnb-ing on a whole ‘nother level.). It might have been because those two were killed this year in a motorcycle accident. Continue reading
Posted in Contemporary Worship, Missouri Megatrends
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Reconnect the 6th and 7th Petitions
The Pope made quite a stir when in 2019 he deemed, dared to, correct the Lord who said, “When you pray say…Lead us not into temptation” into “Do not let us fall into temptation”. I have preached a lot on the Lord’s Prayer every 4 years from 1990 to 2023. That in itself doesn’t make me an expert. It does make be experienced in dealing with this petition. Luther’s strong quoting of James 1:13 right off the bat notwithstanding, “God tempts no one”, I have stumbled at times in thinking, teaching and preaching. Ergo, I’ve concluded, that we need to connect the 6th, “Lead us not into temptation” with the 7th, “Deliver us from evil.” Continue reading
Posted in Families
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This Seems Just Plain Wrong
Go here to view the age of consent for sexual relations in 1880 America, and prepare to be shocked: https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24.html . I first found this out from Marvin Olasky’s 2023 book The Story of Abortion in America: A Street-Level History, 1652–2022. And I’m still puzzling over it if not downright bothered by it! Continue reading
Posted in Families, For Anyone who dares
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Go Ask Alice
Everything/Nothing/Someone is the 2023 memoir of 39 year old Alice Carriere whose only claim to fame is that she was the only child of a famous artist and actor. One review said, “At 35 she has quite a lot to tell.” She thinks she does, but does not. But like Jefferson Airplane taught us: “Go ask Alice.” Continue reading
Posted in For Anyone who dares, Psychology - Knowledge Falsely So Called?
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Just Too Good To Pass Up – “The Push for an American Baby Boom”
My blogs are usually 30 to 40 weeks in the “hopper” before being published. It doesn’t ensure quality as much as assure against “poison pen” posts. (And poison pen letter is another expression that will have to be defined for anyone under 20 or mayhaps even older.) Continue reading
Posted in Families, Missouri Megatrends
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Lady Godiva
This 1861 statue is in England is the oldest known statue of the most famous nude.
Posted in Families, For Anyone who dares
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How Cheap Can We Get Him?
A mentor of mine who for decades was a circuit counselor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod told me that when he was working with a church that had a pastoral vacancy, when the topic turned to salary some old German always said, “How cheap can we get him?” He didn’t seek to muzzle the ox. Just to limit its eating. Continue reading
Posted in For Pastors Only, Missouri Megatrends
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What to say after Here I stand: Perhaps I’m Wrong
There is such a thing as the tyranny of conscience. This early quote from Luther applies: Luther’s own appraisal of his “Here I Stand” 95 Theses in a 1518 letter to his superior, the Bishop of Brandenburg, said in part: “For I doubt some of them, am ignorant about others, and deny some, while not positively asserting any, but submitting all to the holy Church’” (Plass, Ewald, This is Luther, 201). Susan Howatch in her The Starbridge series of novels covers an Anglican cathedral from the 30’s – 60’s. A young priest’s revelatory moment, saving him from a nervous breakdown, is the sudden thought, “I may be wrong.” This is what I find is lacking in many of today’s Confessional Lutheran pastors. They have a drop- dead certainty about things that the Lord has not said, and this leads to a tyrannical conscience. This is a letter from Oliver Cromwell that addressed this tyranny. Continue reading
Posted in For Pastors Only
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